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This is true. What if you pay and still get nothing out? The government are persistently moving the goal posts. Also, many women who have paid, then bring up a family, lose the entitlement. Yes, you can top up but once it reaches 1000s most don't have the spare cash.

£155 per week....adjusted through means testing and housing benefit becomes well in excess of £10 per day in your pocket after all bills including phone and warmth are accounted for.....its not a lot for those that cant budget but is not bad for those that learned about budgeting......there is also free bus travel and mostly free dentistry and optician stuff to be added to the package plus free prescriptions......depends on the individuals mindset whether this is satisfactory or not.

It's obviously been some time since you checked the regs, Zendaze. Dentistry for pensioners is not free unless you are on Pension Credit. So basically the great majority who are not on Pension Credit (Like two pensioners on 'full' pension at the same household address) have to pay £20 for a brief 5-minute dental check, and £50 for one filling, up to three fillings, on the NHS, like employed folk.

Same goes for glasses - you don't get them free unless you are on Pension Credit. You do get one free optician check in every two years, but if your optician wants you in every year, then you have to pay for the extra one. Even worse, if you just paid for your second optician visit, the next free one isn't due until two years time. So you can end up paying every year, a nice little swizz by the government and the opticians!

Free prescriptions are a mixed blessing - some doctor practices and chemists like to get you on free renewable prescriptions at the drop of a hat. Because it means more money and less trouble for them, and who cares if the NHS have to pay for something every week that is often unnecessary?
A retired doctor friend of mine reckons quite a sizable proportion of people over 65 are on unnecessary prescriptions, automatically renewed, and supposedly reviewed - but often not - only once a year.
So put quite crudely, but realistically, these people are swallowing pills they often don't need for ailments they no longer have, to augment the income of drug companies, suppliers, doctor practices, and chemists, all the way down the line. And our poor old NHS foots the bill!

Theres no guarantee that council tax or housing benefit will still be available to us in a few years.State pension wont be available to todays youngsters.Allowances are diminishing and vanishing for working single parents and child care..How long before the NHS ceases to be free at point of use.I think.not long at the rste plans are clearly advancing in Tory government circles.
Its an oft repeated throwaway of Tories that we should work if we're capable and regardless of age...we ruffians ans scallies have no right to a free meal ticket even if they themselves are guaranteed a gold plated one.

But hey ho ..I was forgetting thst over generous £10 in my pocket id be enjoying if i learn to budget carefully.....

Hebridean at heart..everywhere else is just somewhere on the way back there...

Private pensions are worth about the same as the state pension. My two are worth about £3000 a year!
If housing benefit goes, generation rent will be camping in the park! Not in Brighton, obviously! To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Huge short sightedness by this and previous Governments/Corporate Business have caused this,they will have to pay in the end.
I am inline for no pension,due to be ripped by both private pension schemes and lack of being educated about compliance to state pension.

£155 per week....adjusted through means testing and housing benefit becomes well in excess of £10 per day in your pocket after all bills including phone and warmth are accounted for.....its not a lot for those that cant budget but is not bad for those that learned about budgeting......there is also free bus travel and mostly free dentistry and optician stuff to be added to the package plus free prescriptions......depends on the individuals mindset whether this is satisfactory or not.

The tories want to stay in power, party first is it not?, so can't piss off too many of their older voter-base. So would they just keep raising the retirement age until we are all to old to retire, or, announce that anyone under a certain age will no longer be getting a pension?Neither of which would affect their older voter-base. And most people who qualify, being totally money, and self, obsessed will vote for it To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

of course you could take out a private pension as some self employed do, or join a company pension scheme as I did.

You mean like the private pension scheme Phillip Green skimmed off millions from and the e.Equutable Life that collapsed due to bad investments or the Maxwell Mirror (heres your pension heres it gone).... or Maersk and Sealand or National Bus Co or the Govts own SERPS scheme...ll keep what money i earn in my own control thsnks.Ive been ripped off quite badly already by so called private professonal finance experts annd never saw a penny back ...Im highly unlikely to see official retirement age anyway.

Old report from 2012 but pension schemes dont recover overnight and id like to bet most if not all are still panicing like fuck behind the scenes how to make the figures add up while publicly saying everything is fine..

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Keep taking the opium

Hebridean at heart..everywhere else is just somewhere on the way back there...

I owe a years national insurance contributions for the 12 months I was on strike with the miners Strike 1984/85 the Then government says they would contribute to cover any striking miner with a weekly income of less than £4 I got £2 strike money off of the NUM. months after the miners strike finished. The government reneged on paying our NI/pension contribution. They gave us a few months before the new tax year to pay it in full or loose out at pensionable age. I had a forecast a few years ago, I will loose approximately £30 per week when get to state pension age.

My take on the bus pass thing is that the transit companies can only claim monies from councils for journeys taken, hence the need for scanning of buspass or issueing a ticket so that the journey is insured and billed........why it could possibly come out at £600 per month is doubtless a london centric issue.....

My take on the bus pass thing is that the transit companies can only claim monies from councils for journeys taken, hence the need for scanning of buspass or issueing a ticket so that the journey is insured and billed........why it could possibly come out at £600 per month is doubtless a london centric issue.....

Its about £600 a year per pass. The London Boroughs combined paid £353 Million in 2015 to Transport for London for the Freedom Passes they issue. That's paid up front. I can't imagine for one minute that all the OAPs together could run up a bill that big by actual travelling. Many passes are never used at all.

What that says to me is the bus passes are overpriced. London's public transport is generally overpriced, and there's far too many bus companies in the game.

I would think there's better informed people trying to get the price of bus travel just about right. For all parties. Even down to squeezing a penny each way.
I do believe those with a bus pass can only use the service After a set time in the morning. This is usually the slack period when bus seats are in less demand.

My mate tried to get mobility award under the then DLA he couldn't walk very far, his legs were often twice the size and purple in colour. However because he could walk to the bus stop just outside his home. He was refused DLA mobility. But was awarded a free bus pass. So these bus passes are not just allocated to pensioners.

By overpriced I meant whoever is asking for the price from TFL is taking the wee.
Let's face it, the buses have to run if there are passengers or not. There are only so many passengers. Divide them up between the many many buses that ply the streets of London and I am amazed there's enough to pay for the buses to run.

Few places outside the big cities run their own public transport any more. It's done by private companies who have to charge a 'realistic' fare, and then get basic subsidies from local councils to some degree, and are then further subsidised by the local councils and national government for bus passes.

Not every bus company has pass-clocking equipment on its buses, especially the smaller companies. So you show your pass to the driver, and he presses a button, and you get your free pass ticket. But if the bus is on a poor route with not so many passengers, and the company might be thinking of closing that route down, and maybe dropping a driver, the drivers are unofficially encouraged to push out a few more free pass tickets, every day, than there are passengers, so the route looks busier than it is, gets more subsidy, and so stays open.

Such is the state of affairs. We have a Conservative government which ideologically doesn't like subsidies, subsidising private companies who can't make a private service pay, and making local councils do likewise.

It would be much more straight-forward if the whole services were state-run, and subsidised as necessary out of taxes, without pretending that private companies are successfully running services as a viable business, which they aren't. Take away their subsidies and most of them would collapse immediately.

few places outside the big cities run public transport...........period.

No, you're wrong. Most provincial areas still run bus routes. If I use my free pass I can get to the East Coast from here for free, but it might take a day or two...To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 1 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.